Friday, July 1, 2011

COMIC: Top of the Stack - Uncanny X-Men #535 (Review)

By happenstance, UNCANNY X-MEN #535 was the first comic from the stack of comic books for the second week of April that I read, and outside of the other uncanny title to come out there was not much competition for the top spot after I had read that book.

Continuing from the previous week's .1 issue, the series now only has one main pilot as writer Kieron Gillen has taken over the reigns. A new storyline starts, bringing back the elements from Joss Whedon's ASTONISHING X-MEN run of several years ago. Agent Brand of S.W.O.R.D. has returned from the end of her own series to bring a vital request for help from the X-Men. Unfortunately Beast does not get an inclusion, but as one of my favorite X-related characters it was nice to see Agent Brand again.

Brand is back because remnants of Breakworld are making their way towards earth and of course because the X-Men and specifically Colossus were reasons why this could be a problem she got them involved. Magneto tags along and his fascination with the remnants of the bullet Kitty Pryde had been stuck in will surely play a part in the future of this story. It is interesting to find him so passionate about it while everyone else has it on the backburner outside of trying to find a cure to Kitty's constant phase status.

The interior art and cover are provided by the husband wife team of Terry and Rachel Dodson and the book just looks beautiful thanks to their efforts. The cover is reminiscent of a sci-fi epic image, with Kitty and Colussus taking feature spots in it, possibly a foreshadow of parts of the story yet to unfold.

It has been over thirty issues since Matt Fraction's influence came over the X-books and I welcome a change of the writing guard as it has been awhile since I was eagerly reading issues of UNCANNY X-MEN (outside of the Second Coming event) and while I am not entirely familiar with Gillen outside of his S.W.O.R.D. work, I am enjoying the cast he is working with and look forward to seeing what the story will end up being about.